Copper & Steel
by Withering.Sakura
Summary: When Harry Potter meets the boy of his dreams in Potions Class, it seems that his life is beginning to finally look up, but is the pale, copper haired boy really as perfect...and as harmless, as he seems?  MxM/Slash  rated M for later chapters.
1. Potions

It was one of those mornings when one simply did not want to get out of bed. Dawn had brought with it a bitter cold, and an all encompassing mist that creeped like a living thing into every bedroom, bathroom, classroom and corridor of

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The covers of Harry Potter's bed seemed extra warm today, as if they were spitefully aware he had been up all night catching up with potions Homework that he'd left to the last minute, again.

Lack of sleep and lethargy from the bitter cold meant that Breakfast was a quiet affair, Harry was content to sit in silence and allow the warmth of the sausages piled on his plate to slowly warm his insides. He simply allowed his two best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger to bicker between themselves. In fact, the only communication he made at all was the death-glare he shot at Hermione when she had loftily reminded him that if Harry had followed the homework plan she'd given him then he would have slept at least a little more than the pathetic four and a half hours that he'd ended up with.

Potions was first lesson and, for the first time this year they were having to share their class with another house's students.

The Hufflepuff teacher had recently managed to turn himself into a carrot after drinking some badly made VegiGrow potion placed in his coffee by a vengeful student. Despite the hilarity of someone becoming an orange vegetable, the teacher's life most certainly hung in the balance and until he recovered the poor man was confined to St. Mungo's.

Harry made it to the classroom a few minutes late, the heavy blanket of exhaustion weighing down his pace to little more than a snail's, and discovered that extra tables had been added to the room but there was only one table free. Ron and Hermione were sat together two rows behind the free table. He sighed. _This day keeps getting better._

Snape hadn't arrived yet and Harry, grateful that he'd managed to at least get to his desk without having points taken from his house, sunk behind the desk and took the chair closest to the wall. He was just considering whether to use blue or black ink to pretend to take notes with when he became aware of a presence next to him. "Is it okay if I sit here?"

The voice was soft and lilting, sounding almost like music in the air.

It annoyed Harry that anyone could sound so happy when he himself felt like a walking corpse and as he looked up to respond grouchily he couldn't help but intake his breath a little too harshly.

The boy stood next to him was.. Well..he was.. He was _gorgeous_.

His skin was very pale, not in a way that hinted at an illness but in a way that seemed to give the smooth blemish free skin an almost luminescent quality in the half light of the candles that adorned the classroom. His curious, shy eyes were a cold shade of steel that contrasted against the copper red hair that was carefully styled in an "I don't care" style.

Harry's brain came up with a blank on the 'how-to-speak' front and he just nodded and moved some of his stationary further onto his side of the table. There was a furious blush creeping into Harry's cheeks and he didn't look at the boy as he thanked him and sat down, quickly retrieving his own quill, parchment and book.

Not ten seconds passed before the greasy, strikingly bat-like Severus Snape swept into the room. His wand flicked briefly at the blackboard and instructions began to write themselves on the board as he walked briskly to his desk and sat down without saying a single word. Clearly he was in just as good a mood as Harry today.

Harry sighed and began to read the instructions on the board;

_Draught of Waking Nightmares_

_A poison known to drive those who ingest it mad with terrifying visions before the victim eventually suffers a fatal heart attack 13 hours and 13 minutes after ingestion. There is an antidote to this potion in it's final form, but many of the ingredients themselves do not have antidotes when ingested separately so BE CAREFUL._

_3x diluted Venomous Tentacula juice as potion base _

_¾ of a single Venomous Tentacula leaf for toxicity_

_4 clockwise & 2 anti-clockwise turns every 30 seconds for 5 minutes_

_1 part Datura mixed with 5 parts Mugwort added into the centre of the potion and stir as above for 15 minutes._

_Crush together 1 part Aconite, 1 part African Violet, 2 parts Belladonna and 1 part Be-Still flower in your pestle and mortar and add to the potion when the potion turns to a faint green colour._

_Final potion should be a murky purple with a faint odour of burning._

_Work in pairs, you will be assessed on your work at the end of the lesson._

_Begin._

All at once people began to rise from their seats to collect their ingredients from the store cupboard, and in the face of the particularly difficult potion him and the boy whose name Harry didn't know had to make, his fatigue immediately began to dissipate. He turned to ask the boy his name and was shocked to see that he was no longer in his seat.

Harry scanned the room to find him and saw that the boy must've been first in line to the cupboard and was already returning to the desk with an arm full of ingredients. He was perilously balancing the vial of_ Venomous Tentacula _inside the bowl of the pestle and mortar and it seemed as if it would topple out of it at and shatter at any second, but the boy managed to somehow carry everything else and still keep the vial steady at the same time.

It had been less than thirty seconds since the black-board had completed writing itself, and the boy's shocking speed stunned Harry. It must have showed on his face because the attractive boy smiled and answered his unspoken question.

"Seen this one in the book already, memorised it so I didn't even need the instructions." He nodded his head towards the board as he explained and set the ingredients down on the desk next to the cauldron that had now appeared next to them.

Harry heard a haughty _hmph_ from behind them and immediately recognised the sound had come from Hermione. Clearly, she had not memorised _this _spell. Everyone knew how much Hermione hated to be outdone. Anywhere. For anything.

"I'm Cedric Diggory. You're Harry Potter." His words weren't a question, but the way there were spoken gave an air of uncertainty that hadn't been there in the previous sentence. He seemed uneasy, and shy. _  
"_Nice to meet you" Harry smiled at the boy, and then began to add ingredients to the pestle and mortar.  
And it was nice to meet him, very nice indeed, thought Harry.

They continued to work efficiently for a while in companionable silence. Every-time Cedric reached across Harry for something Harry caught the strange scent of this new boy that Harry was quickly beginning to like.

It was a subtle smell, like the combination of several expensive colognes on top of each other. It smelled like Vanilla with a sharper undertone of Mint, while at the same time smelling distinctly floral. It was a heady, addictive smell and Harry found himself breathing deeply, almost perversely every-time he had a chance.

Once or twice, Harry looked up from his cauldron-stirring to glance at Cedric's face, and he had caught him looking back at him. Looking down slightly because Cedric was quite a bit taller than Harry, but he was looking at him none the less. And he'd looked away the moment Harry had looked at him.

Soon, the lesson was almost at an end, and Harry and Cedric's potion was a dull, almost mundane purple that belched out little silvery clouds that smelled like burning plastic every thirty seconds or so. Snape had risen from his chair several moments ago and was now flitting around the classroom, _tutting_ and _hmm_ing as he went. He grudgingly awarded five points to a Hufflepuff girl, the only other student who had perfected the Draught. Hermione and Ron's potion had gone a strange blood red colour and smelled faintly of roses. When Snape finally made his way to Harry and Cedric's table he simply glared at Harry, seemingly vexed that he couldn't find anything to fault with the potion.

When Snape dismissed the class and Harry began to rise from his chair, Cedric cleared his throat and opened his mouth as if to say something, but then he closed it and rose from his house as well.

"I'll see you later, Harry?" Cedric's voice was thick with something that Harry couldn't identify. Strain and something else, like longing.

"Sure, I look forward to it" Harry smiled.

He meant it, and hoped that they would indeed see each other again later.

They parted ways and Harry hurried to catch up with his friends.

When he reached them, Hermione had seemingly forgotten all about being outdone in Potions and had instead taken to immediately asking all about Cedric and if they enjoyed their _flirting._


	2. Predictions

"We were _not_ flirting" Harry replied somewhat embarrassed, refusing to meet neither Hermione or Ron's eyes.

"Oh, please" Ron snorted back, "you were sat so close together you may as well have shared one seat,"

Hermione giggled and picked up where Ron left off "Yeah, and all the 'accidental' hand touches as he reaches over to grab something _absolutely necessary _"

The thick sarcasm in their tone annoyed harry _(how could they talk about hand touching when they're constantly holding hands?) _and when his already frayed nerves began to wear even more in the face of their teasing he flatly replied that what they were saying was "utter bullcrap", making sure his tone clearly implied the matter was closed.

The next lesson was Divination, and Harry looked forward to an 'easy hour' sat in the dark, warm room with the heavy incense wafting through the air acting like a tranquilliser for the mostly sceptical students that for the most part, pretended to see anything in their crystal balls or moved the oujia board planchette themselves just so the somewhat crazy lady that taught the lesson would give them good grades.

Today's lesson was centred around the art of Tarot reading, and Ron had his nose stuck firmly inside a book called "Deciphering the unknown" by Barry Bogart.. He'd been staring from the cards to the book, then back at the cards, then at the book again trying to decipher the cards Harry had drawn for the best part of ten minutes.

Harry had very nearly fallen asleep, thinking of his bed in the dormitory when Ron finally said;

"Well, you got a reversed 'two of cups', which means _an upcoming relationship will be passionate, dangerous and fiery._" He wagged his eyebrows and mouthed the word "Cedric" at Harry, but continued before Harry could say anything or throw a spell at him.

"Reverse 'four of pentacles'. _You won't make progress while holding onto the past, _and finally you got the 'Judgement' card, _an awakening of a new person inside yourself_"

Ron sat back in his seat, looking utterly pleased with his ability to memorise three lines of text from a book in ten minutes.

Harry rolled his eyes and picked the cards up, doing his best to shake off the fatigue that the warmth in the room had brought on.

While he was shuffling, he thought about the cards he'd gotten. There was a whole side to him that people didn't know about. The side of him that Ron had shattered to pieces when he had started going out with Hermione. He was only just now getting used to the idea the boy he used to so desperately want was not at all interested in him as anything else than a friend, and he'd begun to let go of his feelings slowly until now they were barely there at all.

Trelawney had a somewhat annoying tendency to predict Harry's death everytime he was in her classroom, and when she eventually began to beeline towards them muttering quietly about curses and omens, Harry felt that he probably didn't need Tarot cards to know what was coming next.

"My boy!" she grabbed Harry's wrist when she reached them, halting his shuffling that had become somewhat fast and overly rough without him noticing while he'd been thinking.

"You are trying to shuffle the cards so you can get answers into the great misty plane that is the future, not shuffle them with such a vigour you set them alight."  
She sighed, and shook her head. The glasses on her nose jiggled and the several pairs of earings that hung loosely from her ears _clinked_ quietly for a moment.  
"Alas, I see that this will be your penultimate lesson. You will be here to witness our revision of tealeaf reading next week, but after that..." She inclined her head to one side and made a small motion with her hand like a knife being drawn across her throat.

"Do not worry though, it will be quick.." Her misty voice trailed away and for a moment she seemed to gaze through Harry.

Padma Patil screamed in shock from the other side of the room when her sister, Parvati drew the 'Death' card and Trelawney's eyes refocused as she floated away, loudly proclaiming that the Death card "does not profess the end of life as most believe, simply the start of something new, death of the old and the mundane.."

"Guess you're dead again, mate" Ron said as he watched the woman walk away.

"Yeah, guess I am" Harry laughed as he shuffled the cards one more time and held them out for Ron to pick.

Lunch and the rest of the day flew by without really anything in particular worth of remembering for Harry. His tiredness had retreated now to the back of his mind where it sat like a dead weight in the centre of his brain, every now and again poking his forehead with something sharp to cause a twinge of a headache to remind him to be in a bad mood.

At Evening meal, Harry entered the dinner hall with Ron and Hermione by his side, and without even thinking about it scanned the dinner hall looking for Cedric. Harry couldn't see the boy anywhere on the table and frowned as he sat down on the left set of benches, opposite Hermione. He positioned himself so he could look past Hermione's head and keep an eye on the Hufflepuff table. He made all the necessary "wow"'s and "oh really?"'s as he ate, listening to Ron and Hermione's talk about Elf Equality and the quality of The Quibbler's latest (terrible) issue with only

half an ear, and injecting some of his own conversation only when completely necessary.

"Harry, are we boring you?" Hermione asked peevishly. She was staring at him. He hadn't noticed.

He could tell she knew he hadn't really been listening.

"No, i'm just tired" He answered, before putting some more food into his mouth so he could avoid speaking again for at least a little while.

"Too busy staring straight through me, looking for Cedric" she quipped, some of the annoyance in her voice now giving way to amusement.  
Harry swallowed the food before he'd chewed enough and coughed loudly several times.

Hermione seemed to take this as a "Yes" and smiled down into her food.

Ron whacked Harry on the back, and Hermione continued.

"He likes you too, yaknow. He talks about you _all the time _in Ancient Runes and whenever you walk past him in the hall I swear to god he almost-" Harry jumped in before she could finish "Hermione? I've known him the best part of half a day, and i've said less than five sentences to him so will you please, please _drop it?._"

Harry stood and extricated himself from the bench and left the lunch hall before she could even reply.

He began to climb the stairs in the great hall, intent on going to bed, but the stairway that led up to the hallway for the Gryffindor was currently facing in the wrong direction, leading off to another hallway that Harry hadn't been down before.

_Great, I have to go the long way round._

Harry groaned in annoyance, but turned and began to walk up another flight of steps that lead to a first floor corridor that most Ravenclaw students had Transfigurations class on. It was a long detour but Harry enjoyed walking the halls of Hogwarts at this time, when the sun seemed like it had been cut and was bleeding red into the sky, and a walk before bed didn't seem all that bad.

The hallway, when he emerged onto it, was bathed in a orangey-red light that Harry so loved to walk in. It was his favourite time of day, the short period between day and night during which he always felt like the Sun's waning rays were being absorbed by his skin, radiating energy through his entire body. It even helped to alleviate his fatigue, just a little.

There was someone sat on a window-sill a little ways down the corridor.

Harry couldn't see who it was, the light was too bright and glared in his eyes, but there must have been two people because Harry could hear the quick muttering of whispered words.

When Harry got closer, he could see Pansy Parkinson leaning out of the open window, talking down to someone who was outside and below. She was talking hurriedly and a note of panic was evident in her voice even though Harry couldn't hear the words clearly enough from the distance he was at.

At the sound of his footsteps, she gasped and whirled to face him, her hand flying to her robe, but she stopped when she saw Harry and her face quickly contorted into a nervous smile.

"Oh, Potter!" her eyes flickered to the open window and she relaxed slightly. Her hand moved away from her pocket and when she looked back to him her face had returned to it's usual sneer-like mask.

"Don't you know better than to eavesdrop, you filthy half blood?" she said, voice dripping with acid as she pushed past him. She launched a punch into his stomach, unexpectedly hard and Harry grunted and doubled over as his breath whooshed out of him. Tears of pain sprang to his eyes and he blinked and tried to get his breath back.

"Harry? Are you okay?"  
Harry looked up.

It was Cedric, of course. He was shutting a door that led to the Hallway Harry had been coming through.

"Yeah, i'm fine." He said, immediately wiping at his eyes with the hem of his robe.

"What are you doing here? Where's Pansy?" Cedric was looking at Harry with those deep eyes again. The ones that were alive but clouded with confusion and something else that Harry couldn't get a grip on. Harry tried to answer him but his lungs weren't able to do anything more than wheeze ineffectually. His vocal chords had no air to work with. He stayed silent.

"She told me to meet her here, to come alone because she had something to tell me?" Cedric was clearly asking Harry what he knew. Which was nothing.  
Harry shrugged.  
"I dunno." Harry managed to say through the winding she'd given him. "She got all pissy when she saw me and punched me in the stomach, then she left" Harry rubbed his stomach where she'd hit him.

Cedric walked forward and touched his arm. "Are you ok?"  
Harry flinched at the touch of Cedric's hand. It had sent a shiver through his body like an electric shock.  
"Yes, i'm fine." Harry said, straightening up, moving his arm from Cedric's touch.

Cedric was frowning, his mouth open as if he was going to say something, the same way it had been that morning. But he didn't. He seemed to be lost for words. He paused again for a few seconds then finally spoke.

"Harry, do yo-" 

_**bang.**_

Someone screamed. It was a really _loud_ scream, as well.  
A terrifying, blood-curdling scream that suddenly ended and disappeared as quickly as it had come.

Cedric's head shot up and Harry instantly forgot the lingering pain in his chest.

The scream had come from the corridor from which Cedric had just come.  
They both moved as one to the door, wands drawn automatically and in a swift, well practised motion.

Cedric slammed open the door to the corridor.

The corridor was long and narrow, rowed on the right side by a single long window that stretched the entire length of the hallway. There were only two doors on the entire corridor. The furthest door from where they stood was the door that would lead to a connecting hallway to Gryffindor tower. The other door was roughly 20 feet from where Harry and Cedric stood. It was hanging off one of it's hinges, obviously blown open by something with considerable force. Blood was smeared down the front of it and...

There was a body sprawled in a heap nearby it.

_It was quite obvious that Hannah Abott was dead. Blood was splashed up the walls and some had even hit the roof and it slowly, laboriously dripped back to the ground with an uneven rhythm. Plink. Plink. Plink. The section of window closest to the door that hung slightly off it's hinges, open, had a smudged handprint along it and below it there was a body as if she'd tried to hold herself up but slipped on her own blood and fallen to the floor. But, this copious amount of blood that was no longer inside her body wasn't even why it was most obvious she was dead. There was a large open wound in her throat, the skin torn away to expose the dark red of her decimated Jugular. Her head was at a strange angle to her body and her right arm stuck out from her body at a bizarre angle that would mean it was broken._

"Oh my.." Cedric gagged and covered his mouth. He looked away.

The sight of Hannah's decimated body set Harry's head spinning and whirling, and the world seemed to fraying and dissolving around the edges. The metallic smell of blood was making him dizzy and he struggled to hold onto his consciousness. Time seemed to skip as he fought to stay awake, one second he was stood up and next to Cedric, the next second he was on the floor and staring into the worried eyes of Cedric Diggory, his mouth was moving but Harry couldn't hear him over the high pitched Buzzing in his ears. The final thing he saw before Harry's vision dissolved into darkness was the solemn and chalk-white face of Minerva McGonagall, one hand pressed over her mouth as she looked from Harry to the devestation in the Hallway. She looked away to speak to someone Harry couldn't see and then..

Cedric and Minerva were gone.

Hannah Abott was gone.

Everything was gone.


	3. A Betrayal

A/N : every time I think about this story, the plot line seems to change. I have all the major events planned out, but how we get to them is still in question. This chapter is a shorter one to tide you over while I update some of my other fanfics, the next chapter of this will be up on Mon/Tue next week. I'd like to thank everyone who has viewed, fav'd and reviewed this fanfiction, your support keeps me writing. **Hugs**.

* * *

The first thing that came to Harry through the darkness was the voices.

They were faint and faraway, like listening to a conversation on a television in another room.

The first voice was that of Cedric Diggory's, soft smooth and musical even with the tremor of panic in it.

"…I was with Harry the whole time!"

Harry strained to hear more, and the voice he heard was that of someone he didn't expect to hear  
"…can't ignore the circumstantial evidence, Cedric-"  
"What if Harry told you himself when he wakes up?" Cedric's voice was thick with indignation.

A moment of silence.

"Cedric…" A pause, Professor McGonagall seemed to be trying hard to find words.

"We need to do more investigating in the matter, Cedric. I can't make any decision now."  
"But-"  
"Enough, Cedric. I'll come find you tomorrow."

Footsteps fading away. A door opened and shut.

Harry opened his eyes an infinitesimal amount.

Through his lashes Harry recognised the closed partition curtains of the medical ward.

He was alone; the quiet conversation had taken place on the other side of the opaque curtains. He sat up.

A wave of post-faint wooziness stole over him and he pressed his hands to his head and waited for it to pass.  
Thankfully, Harry found that he was still fully dressed, and when he threw the thin covers away from himself and stood up, he was pleased to find his legs didn't give out under him, although he winced when his stomach gave a slight protest of pain where Pansy had slugged him.

He pulled the privacy curtain open and peered out.

Cedric was sat on the opposite side of the room, his hands were pressed over his face and he was as still as a statue,

Harry stepped out of the little room and began to quietly walk towards Cedric.

He didn't look up as Harry approached and, Harry had no idea what to say.

Eventually, Harry decided to clear his throat.

Cliché, but effective none the less.

Cedric looked up. There were signs of stress on his face.  
There were fatigue bruises under his eyes that hadn't been there when they'd met in the hallway, and the gel in his copper hair no longer held his hair stiff, the short spikes and slight curls now hung in every direction as if relieved to be able to move again.

"Oh, you're awake" An unexpected smile grew on Cedric's lips.

The brightness of his smile looked out of place against the backdrop of his tired face. His gorgeously grey eyes were sparkling despite the tiredness and his lips were still a dark red that most women would kill for. Harry had to resist the urge to try and jump on him.

Harry wondered if Cedric had been here all night, the sun had been going down when he'd fainted and now Harry could see the beginnings of dawn outside the window behind where Cedric sat.

There was a second of awkward silence and then Cedric stood.

It looked for a moment like Cedric was going to step closer to Harry, but then he turned and called for Harry to follow him as he began to walk away.

Harry caught up and fell into step with Cedric in the hallway outside of the Medical bay.

It was still very early dawn, and the shadows of the night had not yet been burned away from the windows.

It was another cold morning, although not nearly as cold as the previous and after the long rest he'd had he felt considerably brighter, despite the image of Hannah's smashed body lingering behind his eyes as if it was etched into his retinas.

Cedric was staring straight ahead, jaw set into a grim line.

"Harry, I.." He paused again.  
In the back of Harry's mind, a sardonic part of his mind casually wondered if Cedric Diggory had ever gotten through a sentence without pausing.

Harry suppressed a little grin and waited.

They were walking down the stairs of the Great Hall now, Harry was a step behind him, somewhat unsure if Cedric had forgotten that he'd left a sentence unfinished, and Cedric was leading him out and away from the main castle of Hogwarts before he spoke again.

"Harry, I wanted to ask you if you would do something for me."

Harry blinked.

"Uh, sure."

Harry didn't know what he'd expected Cedric to say, but that certainly wasn't it.

Maybe he'd expected Cedric to say something about what happened to Hannah, or the conversation he'd had with the Transfigurations teacher. _Hannah. _

Pain at the poor girl's death and pointless guilt that he couldn't save her welled in his stomach and sat there unmoving, like a dead weight of iron in the centre of his body.  
They'd reached the outskirts of the hill that sloped gently downward towards the lake, and Cedric finally stopped walking and sat down on the slightly damp grass.

Cedric glanced from side to side, as if he was checking they were alone.  
_No one else would be out here, in the cold at the crack of dawn, Cedric._

Harry didn't say anything, still he waited. Obviously there was no point in pushing him to hurry up.

Cedric sighed.

"No one knows about what happened to Hannah, except you, me & McGonagall."  
Cedric met Harry's eyes and then looked away again.

"Somehow, it's already gotten around school how Hannah...was killed, and that you found her, but I haven't been mentioned yet..." Cedric's pale skin flushed an even paler colour.

"I wanted to ask you, if..." Cedric's voice broke and then he carried on, in a rush of words before he chickened out. "-I-wanted-to-ask-you-if-you-wouldn't-mention-I-was-there-at-all-with-you-and-you -found-her-on-your-own."

Realisation punched Harry in the stomach even harder than Pansy had, and the pain that shot through his body hurt infinite times more than any physical punch could have.

"And you want me to take the fall, to be the sole object of the gossip." Harry said angrily after his moment of shock had passed, his face suddenly burning bright red with anger.

Harry had been stupidly hoping that maybe Cedric had stayed with Harry through the night because he actually _cared_ about Harry, not because he wanted to ask if Harry would truncate Cedric's involvement in any future re-telling of the gruesome event.

Cedric's eyes shot up to Harry's, surprise and shock evident on his face.

"Oh no, Harry! It's not that at all, you don't underst-"  
"I understand perfectly!" Harry said as he got to his feet, voice cracking slightly and eyes filling with angry, hurt tears as he stared down to Cedric's stricken face below him.

"Harry Potter would be expected to be found next to the corpse of a dead girl with her throat torn open, but Cedric Diggory? Oh no, not perfect, _popular,_ **normal,** Cedric Diggory." Harry spat the words at him, then he began to storm away, not trusting his voice to work any more now that the angry tears were so close to breaking free, and the sobs that were working their way up from his stomach had become so desperate to surface into his mouth.

"Harry!" Cedric shouted after him, "Wait! You really don't understand, let me explain!"  
Harry didn't look back, he simply shouted over his shoulder that Cedric shouldn't worry, and that "the secret was safe with him".

And then Harry began to run back towards the school, the hot tears that he'd held back finally breaking free.


	4. Revelations

_A/N : I know that the next chapter of this story wasn't due for another two days, but I had some time to myself over the last few hours and I suddenly got a lot of inspiration for where to take this story. Thanks for viewing. **Hugs.**_

Harry had been staring at himself in the mirror of the first floor boy's bathroom for the best part of 10 minutes.

Lessons had started, he should be in Potions with Professor Snape, but

A. He hadn't stopped crying until a few minutes ago

B. He sat next to Cedric in potions.

Once Harry had calmed down enough, splashed the ice cold water onto his face enough to numb the red puffy skin around his eyes he'd taken to staring blankly into the mirror, watching the red flush gradually fade from his face.

The horizontal crack that ran jaggedly down the entire mirror from right to left divided his face into two parts, each side perfect symmetrical apart from the jagged scar that ran down his forehead on one side. It was two shades of skin darker than the rest of his peach-pale face and it stood out starkly under the bright glaring lights in the bathroom.

Harry sighed, and then hiccupped.

Harry grimaced against the deep stab of pain he felt as his inner voice repeated the boy's name again and again.

He'd only known him two days, why did he feel like he knew everything about him?

They'd barely spoken, barely even spent any real time together.

Well, Harry admitted.

They had spent time together, but Harry had been unconscious for the entire time.

Harry wondered idly what Cedric had done in the hours that he'd been sat with Harry. Had he sat next to him and watched him sleep? Read a book?  
Or had he indeed gone to bed and come back before Harry had woken up.

No, he hadn't slept, that much Harry was sure of, no one could have slept and looked that tired. Had he sat there and planned how to ask Harry if it would be okay to lie about Hannah?

It felt like there was a heavy chain attached to Harry Cedric was pulling on it, Harry was constantly connected to him and Cedric was always somewhere in his brain, tugging gently to constantly make him think about him.  
It was stupid.  
There was no good reason that Harry had become this attached to someone in two days. It was foolish. Totally, _totally foolish._

Harry balled his fists, pushing indignation, anger and sadness away from the front of his mind.

Maybe it wasn't a chain connecting Harry to Cedric. Perhaps it was a chain to _imprison _Harry, forcibly keep him from getting _away _from him_. _ It must be the latter if Cedric would do this to him.

Harry sighed and resigned himself, in a snap decision to go to Potions.

He'd pretend to be totally fine.

He did it before when Ron had shot him down, and he would do it again this time with Cedric.  
He'd work on gradually sawing through the thick metal of the emotional chain that attached him, and eventually, he would be freed again, just like he was from Ron.

Harry fixed his glasses on his nose, forced himself to smile into the mirror, then turned and left the bathroom.

Harry arrived to Potions twenty minutes late.

As he opened the door, Professor Snape turned and with a sneer, deducted 20 points from Gryffindor. A point for each minute, he said.

As he silently walked to his seat, every set of eyes in the room followed him.

From the back of the class, Ron and Hermione gave him confused, quizzical looks, but he simply shook his head and mouthed the word "later" to them.

When he reached the desk in front of his own, he saw Cedric for the first time.

Harry had been trying to avoid looking for, or at the boy.

But, as soon as Harry's eyes took in the Copper hair of Cedric's head that was bent low over his parchment, Harry felt the stab of pain again and the chain attached to his heart received a particularly hard tug.

He didn't look at Cedric as he sat down, opened his bag and pulled out some parchment, a quill and a bottle of ink.  
He was glad that the lesson was not a practical, the room was silent aside from the scratching of Quills and Harry didn't have any reason to look at or communicate with the boy next to him.

He'd written roughly six lines of notes about a potion that Egyptian wizards use to turn Sand into water when a small, perfectly folded paper plane came to rest next to him.  
He looked up.

Snape was bent over another student's work, muttering quietly to her and pointing to something she'd written, so Harry quickly unfolded the note and began to read :

_Harry,_

_What the hell happened to you? Are you okay? Ron and I heard a horrible rumour about you being there when Hannah got hurt? Why were you in the medical wing all night? Tell us everything. _

_Hermione._

As soon as Harry had finished reading the words, they began to fade from the enchanted paper.  
Harry thought about how much to tell them.

Should he tell them that Cedric was there?  
No, he promised he wouldn't.

Harry looked up to check that Snape wasn't anywhere near again, and began to write a message back to them;

_Ron&Hermione,_

_Saw Pansy in a hallway last night, interrupted something and she hit me. Next minute heard scream from hallway and found Hannah's body. Fainted and McGonagall took me to M.B. Woke up early and went for a walk. Talk later._

_Harry._

It was a short response, but it was as close to the truth as he could get without mentioning couldn't help himself, he glanced up at Cedric's face for a split second.

Cedric eyes were looking down, at the note.

He'd been reading every word as soon as Harry wrote it. His eyes that were usually such a bright and shining grey were now the dull, dead colour of a thick, malevolent rain cloud.

His cherry red lips were pressed into a tight line and for a moment, Harry thought that it looked that Cedric was close to tears.

But then, Harry was looking back at the paper aeroplane, watching as it refolded itself and then threw itself away from the desk, and then began to glide swiftly and stealthily back to the couple that had sent it.

Over the next ten minutes of quiet working, Harry became aware of the closeness of Cedric's body to his own. The skin of Cedric's arm was pressing gently against his own. Cedric must have been sat right on the edge of his seat, and leaning far across into Harry's half of the table.

Harry could actually feel Cedric's body moving closer to him, infinitesimal amounts of movement every couple of seconds or so.

Less than a minute later, Harry nearly fell of his chair when in shock when Cedric's whispered voice ghosted onto his ear from less than a inch away.

The feeling of Cedric's cool breath on his cheek sent a shiver up Harry's spine, and his heart began to beat extremely hard and fast in response.

"Meet me tonight by the lake after dinner. I promise.." Cedric brushed his lips against the skin of Harry's neck just the slightest amount, and then he spoke again, his voice so quiet that no one apart from Harry could even tell he was speaking, " I will explain everything to you."

As he moved his face away, his hand gripped Harry's own hand for less than a second, then he sat back on the centre of his own chair, and went back to his own work.

Harry felt like he'd just fallen into a parallel universe. Completely confused, the warmth that the almost kiss on his neck and brief handhold had caused lingered and made the skin on his arms pucker into goosebumps.

Harry didn't write another word for the entire lesson. Harry's brain seemed to be glitching, unable to think of anything else except the way his body had responded to Cedric and the feel of Cedric's lips on his skin. He simply sat, and stared at his parchment.

A ghost of Cedric followed Harry around for the rest of the day, completely and utterly destroying his ability to concentrate on anything in the rest of his lessons. Professor McGonagall smiled encouragingly at him as he unsuccessfully managed to transfigure his teacup into a saucer. She clearly thought his distraction was shock from Hannah's death and she marked him high despite his failed attempt.

He ate nothing at lunch, instead putting five pieces of chewing gum into his mouth. His stomach was in too many knots and the peppermint soothed his nerves a little bit as he left the warmth of the Great Hall and headed out in the direction of the lake.

There was never really any doubt that Harry would go to see Cedric, even though Ron and Hermione had told Harry that Cedric would probably just be going to cause more trouble. (They had eventually weaselled out of Harry the full version of what had happened, and despite the guilt that Harry felt for going back on his word to Cedric, he'd made Ron and Hermione both swear on their families that they would not breathe a word to anyone else.)

The chain around Harry's heart was almost dragging him towards the expanse of cold, black water that gave nothing away about the strange creatures that lurked within it.

Going too near the edge of the lake made Harry nervous, but he'd spent plenty of hot, lazy days in summer nearby to it, enjoying the cool breeze that came off of it's onyx surface.

The sun had almost completely dropped below the line of the forbidden forest, and almost all the sunlight had faded from the sky. Harry shivered uncomfortably in the near darkness.

Where was Cedric?

Harry couldn't see a thing, the half-light was rapidly fading into pitch blackand he was half scared that he'd walk into the lake without realising, but this worry was cut off when a hand gently wrapped around his waist and hugged him.

Harry jumped and struggled for a moment, but at the sound of Cedric's voice, he relaxed.

"I wanted to make sure we wouldn't be disturbed." Cedric said as he released Harry.

Harry didn't say anything, he didn't know where to direct his words. It was pitch black now, and Harry's eyes were useless. Cedric spoke from behind him.

"Harry, the reason I asked you to cover for me wasn't because I didn't want to be gossiped about."

Harry snorted, disbelieving.

Silence. More Silence.

Even more silence.

Suddenly Harry was moving.

Cedric had grabbed his arm and had pulled him into a tight hug.

Harry gasped slightly as Cedric hugged him closer to his body.

"I'll show you why, then." he said.

Harry felt an electric shock pass through his body as Cedric muttered a spell that Harry didn't recognise.

Harry's vision shifted out of focus and then back in again, and suddenly he could see every single detail of their surroundings perfectly, everything the same bright shade of emerald.

Magical night-vision. Cool.

Cedric looked both astonishingly beautiful and disturbingly creepy now.

The green tinge make his skin look luminescent in the darkness, and his eyes sparkled like they were on fire with black flames.

Suddenly, Harry wanted to scream.

Not because Harry was shocked by the magic or by the look of Cedric's ghostly body in the greeny darkness.

It was because of what Cedric was holding.

He was standing perfectly still, his eyes fixed on Harry, and in his hand was a long, wickedly sharp looking knife.

Cedric raised his knife hand above his head. From this distance, Cedric could easily get a deep slash in Harry's stomach.

Harry's whole body tensed in fear and his heart seemed to be trying to climb into his throat.

"This." Cedric said, "is why."

The knife came down, and Harry waited.

No deep pain came. There was nothing, it was silent around him.

Harry realised he'd shut his eyes when Cedric had brought the knife down.

He opened one eye and looked at Cedric.

Cedric was standing completely still again, the knife hand now back by his side, empty.  
His other hand was held out towards Harry, palm upwards, as if reaching out towards him.

Harry could see the pale-green skin of his wrist and forearm, and for a moment Harry wondered if there had really been a knife at all.

But then, Cedric's wrist opened.

Blood began to well and run freely down his arm, merging into a small stream of black liquid and dripping down to his elbow then cascading to the ground.

"Cedric!" Harry shouted, stepping forward and reaching out towards the boy.

"Wait." He said, moving his wrist away from Harry's hands and holding it up next to his head as if he were going to wave.

Even as Harry watched, the flow of blood began to slow down and the deep cut that must have severed tendons and muscle, began to heal.

The blood and cut were completely gone in under a minute, the only evidence of it ever existing was the small trickle of blood that remained on Cedric's wrist and elbow. There wasn't even a scar.

Harry looked from Cedric's wrist back to Cedric's face.

He was smiling.

"Cedric.. I-"  
"Have you worked it out, Harry?" Cedric asked.

Harry just stared at him, as dumbstruck as if Cedric had just slapped him.

"Pale skin all year round...The speed I used in potions class...My healing abilities..."

Cedric was nonchalantly ticking things off on his fingers, as casually as if discussing a list of things he bought on a shopping trip. As casually as if he hadn't just slashed his own wrist open, and smiled as the blood cascaded down his arm.

Harry shook his head. " I don't know what you're saying to me, Cedric.

Cedric made a frustrated sound.

"Harry." Cedric sounded annoyed and amused at the same time as he closed the gap between them and whispered into his ear.

"Bram Stoker got his inspiration from one of my ancestors"

A light clicked on in Harry's head.

He staggered backwards a few steps.

"You're a _vampire?_" Harry asked incredulously.

Cedric smiled and clapped his hands together.

"_half _Vampire." Cedric admitted.

"My father was a vampire, my mother a human." He motioned to his mouth. "No fangs, I don't need or want to drink blood." Cedric laughed at Harry's expression. " I don't explode in the sunlight, and I actually rather love a bit of Garlic in my food every now and again."  
Harry gulped.  
He should be scared. He should run away, and not look back.

So this is why he doesn't want anyone to know he was there.

Hannah got her _throat_ ripped out. And Cedric is a vampire!#

Okay, half vampire.

"I was with you when Hannah died, Harry." Cedric said, as if he'd read Harry's mind.

"You know that I couldn't have murdered Hannah, but if it got out that I was with you and Hannah had died in _that _way... It might mean that I become suspect number one and the gossip at school would soon get to the ministry."

Harry nodded, finally understanding the conversation he'd heard between Cedric and McGonagall in the Sick bay.

"I hope this doesn't affect _us,_Harry." Cedric's voice was pained. His voice shook with vulnerability, and in that moment any fear Harry had felt at the word _vampire_ faded away.

There was no way that Cedric could kill anyone. Harry didn't know how he knew, he just knew that Cedric wasn't that kind of person. And if Cedric didn't need to drink blood what did Harry have to be afraid of?

The chain attached to Harry's heart gave a little tug, reminding him that he hadn't spoke.

"There is an _us?_" Harry asked.

His heart was beating way too fast. If Cedric spoke, Harry wasn't sure he'd even be able to hear it over the sound of his heart slamming against his ribcage.

Harry was suddenly moving again. Cedric was pulling Harry towards his body, impossibly fast, lifting Harry's head and lowering his own in the same instant.

When Cedric's lips pressed against Harry's, every cell in Harry's body flared with heat, like he'd been suddenly set alight.

The kiss was gentle at first, but a moment later Cedric pressed his lips harder against Harry's, and then he withdrew and whispered into Harry's ear. 

"Do you want there to be?"


	5. Passion

A/N – _Shaaaaaaame! Shame on me! Such a long wait for this chapter. I've been ill with seasonal flu and I was too ill to do anything, but now i'm back. :D okay, I got some inboxes telling me they wanted some action from the love-birds, so this chapter contains some unsuitable content for minors. A shorter chapter this time, but I have already started writing the next one. Obviously, this story is completely AU, I had a lot of fun doing the background story for Cedric, enjoy! :D _

The bed in which Harry awoke was unfamiliar. It took him a moment to remember he wasn't in his own dorm room.

Cedric's half vampire status meant that he was discreetly assigned his own room (just in case), and after Harry had begun to shiver in half-cold , half-fear of the darkness Cedric had taken Harry's hand in his and walked back to the room with him, explaining things about himself quietly as they walked.

"My father was a frenchman called Damian Morel Molyneux. He was born in 1902, and 'died' " Cedric used his free hand to make a quotation mark in the air before continuing " In 1940, when he was 38"

Cedric smiled at Harry's blank expression.

"He was 4 new years old, in 1944, when he met my 20 year old mother, Claudia Ibinescu Lior, in Romania, after he fled from France when supernatural huntings began to get much more common. My father had transylvanian ancestors and wanted to return to his forefathers' land." Cedric glanced at Harry.

"My mother was half italian and half romanian, and my father fell instantly in love with her. He watched her from afar for 3 years, content to watch her beauty flourish as she worked in a small tavern."

Cedric paused to unlock his bedroom door, holding it open for Harry.

"Eventually he built up the nerve to talk to her, and they fell in love almost immediately, married by the end of that year."

He'd directed Harry's attention to a small painting hung on the wall of his bedroom.

It was tiny, ten inches by eight, and had a simple portrait of a man and a woman in it, stood side by side.

When Harry went closer to inspect it, he could see the woman had thick black hair that fell in gently waving curls all the way to the top of the pure white dress she wore. There was pure joy etched into her fine features. She was not quite olive skinned, but not quite white, and her cherry red lips were stretched into a wide smile that made her steely gray eyes shine, even though the paint was old and faded. She was very beautiful.

The man stood next to her looked strikingly similar to the boy he'd recently kissed.

The man was deathly pale, more so than Cedric and he lacked the strange luminescence that Cedric possessed, but the man was tall, had unruly copper hair and the same high cheek bones that Cedric had.

The man was smiling too, though not as widely, Harry though it was probably because of his fangs.

Cedric kissed the back of Harry's neck and the boy jumped in surprise, and Cedric chuckled quietly as he wrapped his arms around Harry's waist and hugged him tight to his own body.

"My mother was 31 when she gave birth to me, an extremely old age to give birth at that time, and she survived long enough after only to name and hold me once."

There was a small hint of sadness in Cedric's voice.

"My father looked after me after that."

Harry was confused.

"Wait wait wait." He extricated himself from Cedric's hands.

"You were born over 30 years ago?" Harry asked incredulously.

Cedric nodded.

"To anyone's knowledge, I am only the third half-vampire, usually, the only thing a vampire will do is feed from and kill a human, not marry and have children."

Harry blinked.

"I'm not following you."

Cedric sighed.

"Vampires don't age, right? and humans do?"

Harry nodded.

"Well the human in me makes it so I do age and grow, but the vampire in me makes it so I age much more slowly than you."

"It took you this long just to get here?" Harry's voice was thick with shock and curiosity "So, could you become a full vampire if you wanted too?"

Cedric nodded again.

"I think so, I would just have to find a full vampire and inject some of their venom to kill my human half."

Harry winced at the word 'kill'.

Cedric chuckled again.

"When I was roughly eight physically, my father was fatally injured by another vampire, after they fought about a human that they both wanted to feed from." Cedric moved to hug Harry's waist again, though his voice was shaking slightly and it seemed more for emotional support than for anything else.

"There was no way to save him, and he told me the whole story I've just told you on his deathbed."

Harry stood on his tiptoes and pecked Cedric lightly on his lips.

"You don't have to tell me any-more"

Cedric shook his head.

"Nothing more to tell, I stayed at an orphanage with a woman who knew all about me, until my growth became only one eighth of a year slower than humans, and I was adopted and became Cedric Diggory."

"What a sad story" harry said, feeling sorry for Cedric.

"It had a happy ending, I suppose" Cedric mused as he pulled Harry over to the bed.

"You should get some sleep, it's getting late"

Harry pulled his robe off and, feeling slightly awkward in just his underpants lay down on the bed and got under the covers. Cedric laid on top of the covers beside him.

Harry took off his glasses and then turned to press himself into Cedric.

"Are you not sleeping?" Harry asked him.

"Soon, not yet. I don't need as much sleep as you do." He bent and kissed Harry on the forehead and that was the last thing Harry could remember.

Now, as the fog of sleep cleared from his brain Harry could tell he was alone in the bedroom. The room was empty and quiet except for the sound of the shower in the ensuite. Harry searched the bedside table for his glasses and slipped them on.

He got out of bed and went over to the window, intending to see if he could tell what time it was.

Harry decided that it was just after dawn, and he turned to go back to bed just as the sounds of water stopped.

The door clicked open and Cedric emerged, body bare except for a towel wrapped around his waist.

He smiled widely as he saw that Harry was awake and he crossed the room with amazing speed to put his arms around Harry and kiss him.

Cedric smelled clean and the same mint-vanilla smell he'd noticed the first time they'd met was strong and alluring on his skin.

Harry responded fiercely to the kiss, lips parting to allow Cedric to explore further into his mouth. Cedric's hands were trailing up and down his back, and when his fingers descended under the waistband of Harry's underpants for the briefest moment Harry shivered, his whole body consumed by Cedric's presence.

Harry's hands moved down the front of Cedric's gently toned chest, and further south. He pressed one of his palms into Cedric's crotch and massaged the growing bulge there underneath the thin towel.

Cedric moaned softly and sighed into Harry's hair as he moved away.

"We have company"

Not a moment later, there was a loud knock on the door.

Harry turned to see Cedric, who was already throwing on his underwear and robes.

Harry moved to stand out of view of the doorway, still breathing heavily from Cedric's kiss.

Cedric pulled open the door and he smiled,

"Yes?"

"Is Harry with you?"

It was Hermione's voice.

Cedric shook his head,

"No, not here. I was just on my way out to look for him."  
Harry heard Hermione sigh.

"We've been looking for him all morning, we got up early to find him but Ron said that he didn't go back to their dorm last night" Hermione's tone went up slightly at the end. It was obvious she was asking Cedric what he knew.

Cedric shrugged, "if I see him i'll let him know you're looking for him."  
"Thanks. We're going into Hogsmeade in an hour, come if you like."  
Cedric thanked Hermione and shut the door.

"Where were we?" Harry asked as he grabbed Cedric's waist and pulled him close.

Harry met Cedric's lips with a fierce kiss and Cedric responded with a less fierce kiss, placating him as he subtly nudged him towards the bathroom and the shower.

"Are you going to go to Hogsmeade? You'll need to get ready if you are." Cedric asked against Harry's lips.

Harry nodded.

"As long as you come with me" Harry smiled as he moved his head lower and kissed Cedric's neck before he moved towards the shower.

"It's a deal."


	6. Confrontations

**When Harry and Cedric walked into the great hall, adorned with thick coats, gloves and hats to shield them from the winter that had began to fall gently over the last hour but now swept across the ground in full force.**

**The blizzard-like weather outside had discouraged most of the students from the Hogsmeade trip, but there were still a relatively large number of students from all the houses being milled like sheep by teachers into the great hall. Ron and Hermione had said that they would meet Harry and Cedridc later in Hogsmeade when they'd passed in the hallway, and Harry was looking forward to spending some time with Cedric in the small town.**

**Pansy Parkinson glared at Harry as she passed, walking alongside Malfoy and like she was his lapdog, and, Malfoy didn't speak as he walked past them, he simply glared at Cedric, then at Harry, then back to Cedric. As he reached the other side of the great hall, he whispered something to Pansy and she threw her head back and laughed loudly.  
Cedric growled quietly under his breath, then grabbed Harry's arm and led him away further towards the front doors.**

"**You heard what he said?" Harry asked, although he felt he already knew that he had.**

**Cedric nodded but didn't elaborate, he just brushed his fingers along Harry's cheek, too quick for anyone else to notice but slow enough to cause Harry's heart to stutter.**

**The front doors were finally opened and crowds of people began to move forward, out into the roaring wind.**

**It took a long while to reach Hogsmeade, Harry could barely see more than two feet in front of him and if it wasn't for Cedric holding his hand he would have fallen every second minute.**

**Cedric didn't stumble even once, and he looked as if he knew exactly where he was going despite the sheets of snow falling.**

**When Harry and Cedric reached Hogsmeade, Cedric led Harry into The Three Broomsticks and told him to find them a seat while he bought the drinks.**

**Harry sat at a circular table for two in the corner, away from most of the other customers who were either deep in conversation, or sprawled over their tables in a drunken stupor.**

**Madam Rosmerta was talking quietly to Cedric, nodding her head and smiling warmly.**

**Her eyes flickered briefly to Harry, she winked at him and then looked back to Cedric, her smile even wider than it had been a moment before. She said something else to Cedric and they both shared a laugh.**

**She poured Cedric two tankards of butter-beer and then handed them to him. She waved away his money, and Harry could hear him thanking her, even as he turned away from the bar and started walking back to where Harry sat.**

**Harry thanked Cedric as he passed him one of the drinks, and he took a big gulp of the frothy liquid, enjoying the warmth it spread throughout his body.**

"**Madam Rosmerta is a great friend of my mother." he told Harry as he took a sip of his drink. He saw Harry's expression and corrected himself, "adopted mother".**

**Cedric smiled as he continued to sip his drink, looking at Harry over the edge of the tankard.**

"**She was telling me about how she knew I'd end up with someone...famous."  
There was a mischievous glint in his eye when he said the last word.**

"**Oh, thanks. 'end up with'." Harry tried to act insulted but he ended up just snorting into the foam of his drink while blushing a deep crimson.  
**

"**Where do you want to go next?"**

**They were walking down the street towards the Hogsmeade branch of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, the shop could just be made out further down the street, standing out against the mundane buildings next to it. The lingering warmth that the Butter-beer had planted in his body had begun to fade away now, sapped by the stinging pieces of ice falling from his face.**

**He needed warmth.**

"**I think I should go see Fred and George, I haven't seen them in _ages_"  
Cedric nodded, and they adjusted their course in the direction of the popular shop.**

**When they reached the shop, Harry could see that there were two figures leaned against the shop window of W.W.W .**

**They turned to face Harry and Cedric as they approached, and Harry felt his stomach drop to somewhere around his knees as he recognised the pale faces of Draco and Lucius Malfoy.**

**They were talking quietly to themselves, but their faces contorted to identical sneers as they saw who was approaching.**

"**Oh, look who it is." Draco said as Harry came within earshot. "it's the uh... _love-birds._"**

**Anger flared in the pit of Harry's stomach and he shot Draco the dirtiest look he could muster.**

"**Fuck off, Draco."**

**Lucius tutted.**

"**Such language from the prodigal son.. What would your mother and father think?" Lucius asked, his voice practically dripping with malicious venom.**

**Harry _hmm_ed loudly, and injected plenty of fake innocence into his voice as he turned away and put his hand on the handle of the door.**

"**They would probably ask me why i'm wasting my time talking to a pair of cowardly, washed up death eaters who came _crawling_ back to the good side as soon as things began to not go their way." Both of their faces had gone tight with rage, but Harry wasn't quite finished.**

"**And, they'd probably mention how convenient it was that you got "put under the imperius curse" twice, Lucius. How positively convenient."**

**Harry turned away to go through the door, content that he had won the confrontation but then there was a loud bang and Harry felt himself thrown forwards into the door.  
The glass crunched loudly as Harry's head connected with it, shards of smashed glass slashed his skin and stars exploded in front of his eyes. He collapsed downwards into the snow, but then he got up and flung himself around to face his attacker. His eyes shifted unsteadily, but Harry could see that Lucius' wand was raised and pointed at him. Malfoy was looking shocked and glancing from Harry to his father and then back again.**

**When Cedric spoke a shiver of terror shot through Harry's body, Cedric's voice usually so soft and delicate, was now as cold and dead as the listless snow falling around them.**

"**Leave. _Now._" **

**Lucius snarled, "No _halfbreed_ tells me what to do!" and swept his wand in a large arc.  
Fire exploded from the tip like a flame-thrower and scorched through the icy air towards them.**

**Cedric waved his hand at the flames and in an instant, they revolved in mid air and catapulted back the way they had come.  
The flames scorched at Lucius' arm and chest and he hissed as he waved his wand to dispel the flames.  
"Harry?"  
Someone had opened the door of the shop and was peering out into the street. Fred emerged from the shop door and in his hazy vision Harry could see the bright red hair and the freckles, but it wasn't until another identical face peered out and said "What's going on, Fred?" that harry recognised which one of the Weasley twins was which.  
Lucius stopped patting at his charred cape and stared up at the other wizards, his eyes alight with fury.  
"This," he spat, "is not over"  
He turned and stalked away, Malfoy following in his wake.  
Fred and George scurried from the doorway to his side.  
He was clutching at a section of the top of his forehead that was aching and wet with blood.  
Harry winced as a throb of pain travelled from his head down his spine and all the way to his feet.  
Cedric was holding his by the waist, holding gin still while Fred tugged gently at little sharps of glass that had embedded themselves in Harry"s scalp.  
George was busy repairing the door and cleaning up the mess that Harry's head had caused.  
"I think it's all out, stay still while I heal you, Harry"  
Harry hissed throuhh his teeth as a cold wave of icy pain spread through his skukk.  
It faded a moment later, and all the pain was gone.  
Cedric gently helped him to his feet and into the shop When they got inside Harry sat on a chair behind the desk whiw rhw rwins and Cedric perched on orher surfaces nearby.  
The shop was completely empty, so George waved his at the sign and the door and it spun itself round to 'closed'.  
What the bloody hell was that9" Fred said Cedric explained, and as he did so George and Fred's faces grew darker and darker.**

"God-damn Malfoys... If I could, I'd cull the entire family, starting with that little basta-"  
There was a tinkle of a bell as the door of the shop opened.  
Harry lifted his head to see Ron and Hermione entering the shop hand in hand.  
"Ya know the sign says shut Fred? Yer losing business."  
Fred shushed him and turned back to Cedric.  
"And he just attacked you? In the middle of the street?"  
Harry heard Hermione gasp.

**"Oh, we were so worried!" She. Squeezed him tight and then sat herself down on the floor by his feet.  
Cedric went over again what happened, Hermione pressed her hand over her mouth.  
Ron didn't speak, evidently he was sulking about something.  
"Ron." Hermione prompted.  
Ron looked at her and then made a little grunting noise.  
"Oh for heavens sake, Ron" she rolled her eyes and explained. "He's annoyed that you haven't spoken to us much the last few Days. " Hermione paused but seeing the look of annoyance on Harry's face she swiftly continued,  
"Of course we understand why.. The whole Hannah thing and... Cedric." She met his eyes for a moment before she looked away again, embarassed. **

**Something shifted in Harry's mind and he remembered something that instantly seemed very strange to him.**

"**Cedric"  
Cedric looked up.**

"**Before.. when the fire was coming.. you didn't have your wand."  
There was a moment of silence, during which every face in the room showed blank confusion.**

"**I'll explain everything later, Harry."**

Oh god, not again.


	7. Numb

A/N : The story has been quite slow up to this point. I needed to lay all the foundations for the story, and now that I have we can really get into the meat and potatoes of the drama :D

This chapter contains adult content and is not suitable for minors.  
I love reviews, please take a moment to give me feedback on if you liked the story, or how I can improve if you have any time :)

****

Harry and Cedric made their excuses and left the shop a few minutes later.  
They had silently agreed (by way of eye contact and head nods) between them to leave Hogsmeade and return to Hogwarts.  
The snow that had been falling was now no more than stinging cold slush pelting down onto them.  
"I don't need a wand to do magic." Cedric stated simply as they were walking along the half frozen half flooded path. Most magical folk can never develop this ability, and certainly those that can are not teenage children.  
This confused Harry, and he told Cedric so.  
"Harry. You forget my real age. And, although a human is capable of performing Magic with the help of channelling equipment such as a wand, they are not magical beings." Harry held Harry's hand slightly tighter in anticipation of Harry slipping on the wet pavement, which he did, less than five seconds later.  
"I have the blood of a purely magical being within me, so I'm blessed with much more powerful magic."  
"You can move faster than us , too" Harry said.  
Cedric nodded, "flitting, yes."  
"Can't you flit us back to school, then?" Harry asked. His feet were soaked and his hair was dripping with freezing water.  
Cedric grinned.  
He grabbed Harry's waist and lifted him like he weighed nothing.  
Cedric helped Harry into a piggyback position and then began to jog.  
Harry's heart reacted very little to the sudden jolt of speed that wrenched his body like one experiences at a dip in a rollercoaster, instead it reacted to the feel of Cedric's body moving, the hardmuscles detectable even through the thick fabric of his coat.  
It took less than a minute for them to get to the grounds of Hogwarts, by this time Harry's face had gone completely numb. 

****

They made it to Cedric's bedroom a few minutes later, and as soon as the door was shut Cedric was pulling off his wet clothes and flinging them into a basket.  
When he was done, he walked over to Harry and lifted his chin with a cold finger to kiss him.  
Harry's face was still numb, but his lips tingled with warm electricity like they always did whenever Cedric kissed him.  
Cedric was totally naked and Harry couldn't help take in Cedric's body as he himself began to get undressed by a combination of his own hands and Cedric's. Cedric's body was toned but not overly muscled. The muscles along his arms were defined and were well formed under his skin, Cedric's chest and stomach were also smoothly toned, the planes of muscle visible but faint under his pearled, faintly shimmering skin. Cedric kissed at Harry's neck, and a heat that Harry had never felt before exploded into life like a firework in his toes, and swept upwards through his entire body.  
Cedric's hands were on the zip of Harry's trousers now and Harry blushed a deep crimson colour.  
Cedric paused with his lips pressed against the pulse point at Harry's neck.  
"Do you want to?" Cedric must've taken the blush as nervousness, he thought he'd been too forward in his intentions.  
Harry nodded that he did."I've never done this before."  
"Me neither" Cedric said as he ran his tongue from Harry's collarbone to his ear.  
Harry shivered and pressed his hand against Cedric's chest. He slowly moved his hand downwards, watching Cedric's face for any sign he wanted Harry to stop.  
Harry's heart thudded loudly as he felt the short, sparse wiry hairs under Cedric's belly button. There was very little hair anywhere on Cedric's body, and what hair there was it was so soft and sparse it didn't really seem to be there at all.  
He moved his hand even lower and Cedric moaned quietly against Harry's lips as Harry began to stroke Cedric's rapidly hardening member. Cedric felt big, bigger than Harry though not by much, and where Harry had been circumcised, Cedric had been left intact.  
Cedric broke the kiss with Harry to pull him over to the other side of the room and onto the bed.  
Cedric moved Harry so he was underneath him, and then he waved his hand and muttered something at Harry's midriff.  
Harry gasped as a feeling of wet intrusion from what he guessed must be preparatory magic quickly prepared him for what was coming.  
Cedric kept asking Harry if he was okay until Harry shut him up by occupying his mouth with his own.  
Cedric's hands placed a pillow under Harry's hips and then he positioned himself in between Harry's legs.  
Harry winced, expecting pain as he felt Cedric pushing gently at Harry's entrance, but the magic had done it's job well.

Cedric's eye were on Harry, taking in every inch of his body, and they both groaned in unison as Cedric slid all the way into Harry.  
Harry didn't feel any pain, just a strange fullness and a pulse of delicious pleasure that travelled into every nerve of his body each time Cedric moved.

A few minutes later, when Harry and Cedric both climaxed at almost the same moment, and Cedric collapsed against Harry's body, Harry wrapped his arms around his boyfriend.  
Cedric's unique smell was mixed now with the masculine smell of sweat and sex, and Harry felt completely content to lay there forever with Cedric's breath playing gently on his face.  
Cedric's breaths were becoming less shallow now and more regular, though he was obviously slipping towards sleep.  
Harry shifted ever so slightly so that Cedric's head shifted to the other pillow, and they both moved and got properly under the covers. His arms went around Harry's waist waist and then Cedric whispered into Harry's ear.  
"I love you, Harry."  
Harry smiled, the first waves of sleep washing over him like tidal waves. Harry turned and slowly pressed his lips gently against the only part of Cedric's face he could reach, the underside of his chin.  
"I love you too"

****

omg. My first [**more explicit]** slash scene _ .. im sorry if it was terrible, but yeah you must have got the jist of what happened anyway XD.. see you next time :)x


	8. Chained

Copper & Steel

Chained

Author's Notes -

I'm having trouble finding a line break that works to separate scenes, so if you notice that the characters are somewhere else all of a sudden, FF has probably stripped my line break and glommed everything together. Enjoy :D

_oOo_

_Creature of night,  
Take heart,  
Take flight.  
You're free now to do what you will.  
No morals, no life,  
To live out in strife,  
Your pleasure will come from the kill._

_Wingbeats From A High Balcony,_

_'Maeve104'_

_oOo_

As most people know, in life, God only permits so much happiness before something bad must happen to balance the scales of fates.

Harry had been immensely enjoying his new happiness that Cedric had brought, and yet it had taken less than12 hours for everything to begin falling apart.

It started in Professor Trelawney's third period class.

Harry entered the class and immediately noticed that Professor Trelawney was not in the room.

He sat with Ron at their usual seat, their cups full of tea were already sat waiting on the table, still hot but easily at a drinkable temperature.

Ron was still not talking to Harry, and in a way Harry didn't mind it all that much.

He was happy to not speak, content to keep himself satisfied thinking about the days he'd spent with Cedric.

Each moment they spent together was unique, and each was as magnificent and as valuable to Harry as the previous. Harry felt that each second that Harry spent with him was a personal gift from both God and from Cedric. A sparkling diamond for him to keep with him for the dark times when Cedric couldn't be with him.

These diamonds were keeping him company now, during Ron's strop.

He kept thinking over what they'd done in the confines of Cedric's room over the last few days, the way Cedric's body pressed against his own, his lean muscles fitting into Harry's smaller frame like two pieces of a jigsaw. He thought of the jokes they'd shared between each other, like the time two day's ago they'd snuck food out of the Great Hall and eaten in the grounds on a blanket while the sun was going down.  
Whenever Harry was awake, Cedric was in his thoughts. And the chain that Harry had felt before, the chain that had almost torn his heart from his chest when Harry had only known Cedric two days, now felt like it was made of steel and Harry knew that nothing he could ever do would sever it.

oOo

Professor Trelawney had stormed into the room almost twenty minutes after the lesson had begun.

No one had been drinking the foul tasting tea and deciphering the left over leaves like they should've been.

Harry had heard the door open and felt the draught of air as she entered.  
He glanced up and saw her striding into the room and over to her desk, as Harry looked down he'd heard her shout the single word across the classroom.

"_Quiet!"_

The room had gone silent. No one in the room had ever heard Trelawney be so commanding. Her face was pale and there were shiny beads of perspiration on her forehead.

A long, yellow-nailed finger was pressed against her lips, like a primary school teacher might do.

It was shaking slightly.

When she removed the finger her mouth began to work around silent words for a few moments, as if she was trying to put them into the correct order, and then she cried in a high, cracking voice,

"There is a terrible..." she gulped. "Terrible dark aura in this room..."  
Her voice had taken on it's misty, only half present style as it often did when she was talking.

"Today's lesson was supposed to be about tea reading but, I think..." she trailed off.

Her hands clapped together and several people jumped.

"I shall tell you the ways of the 'Upir' Likhyi'"

When she spoke the foreign words they sounded harsh and her mouth contorted the name so it didn't sound right.

"The Upir Likyhi are undoubtedly one of the darkest creatures to roam upon Earth. Some of them have killed more people than anyone would care to remember, wiping out entire villages and towns in less than a few hours."  
She met the eyes of everyone in the room before she continued, though her eyes lingered on Harry as she spoke.

"Most of you have heard stories, read books about them and watched films about them, but even the most brutal of descriptions in these mediums does not portray the extent of which these beasts are an abomination."  
Harry listened to her words and felt himself becoming more and more interested. This was undoubtedly the only time that the woman had the full attention of every student in the room.

"Most of the Upir Likyhi.. or 'Wicked Vampires', in English, are as sane as you or I, and they do not feed more than once or twice a year. They are most sadistic in their attraction of prey, and it leads to a horrifying...and painful death."

Harry didn't think that Trelawney had any sanity at all, but the word 'Vampire' had positively cemented Harry's attention to her.

"They use a strange form of magic, called _chaining. _All Vampires are believed to be extremely beautiful to those they wish to appear so, and they use this trait to pick out someone they think looks... _tasty._"  
Harry felt his stomach dip slightly.

"This.._chain_..although not physical, and not tangible as a metal existence, magically binds the prey to a vampire, and gradually begins to wrap itself around the prey's heart, soul and mind until they can think of nothing but the one to which it has been bound."

Harry's stomach dropped even further, through the floor.

"It drives the prey completely insane, and the prey will literally throw themselves towards it's own personification of death, glad to be ravaged, murdered, destroyed-" she threw her arms above her head, in a dramatic motion of a death throe, like a damsel in distress might do in an old film, arms up in the air, hands bent backwards towards her face,"-by their hungry obsession."  
Confusion flooded into Harry's mind.  
He didn't understand what he was hearing.

Cedric wasn't a full vampire, and he wouldn't try to … well. _would he?_

Cedric didn't need blood, he'd said so himself.

And Cedric is not a liar.

He is _not a liar. _

He said he loved me, Harry thought.

He could still remember Cedric's voice as he said the words.

Harry pressed his hands over his eyes, they were stinging with tears.

He fought them back and did his best to erase the doubt that had creeped into his mind like a creature from a horror movie.

"Someone in this room has been chained, and we shall know soon enough who it is."

She smiled and pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose.

"When the death cries fill the corridors of this school."  
Ron looked at Harry for the first time in the entire lesson.

Harry didn't meet his eyes.


	9. Theft

A/N – The story has been complicated , I know. I promise it will all make sense, soon. Enjoy!

oOo

Harry didn't meet Cedric later that night.

Instead, he took refuge in the Gryffindor Common Room.

There were books after books on vampires stacked next to his chair by the fire while the orange-yellow flames sent warm shivers up his ice cold body and helped to keep the confused fear at bay.

The five books Harry had already made his way through had not contained a single piece on Upir Lykhi or the strange magic called chaining, not even the most well known books, "Vicious Vampires from Across the Globe" or "Things that Bite in the night".

Ron and Harry had filled Hermione in soon after she'd returned from her lesson of Muggle Studies and despite her cynicism about Professor Trelawney's predictions, she still agreed to help Harry figure out what Cedric was up too.

"You can't avoid him forever, Harry" Hermione said, as she slammed shut another book that had been absolutely useless.

"There must be a link you're missing, Cedric isn't a killer, I just know it!"

Ron gave her an incredulous look.

"He's half bloodsucker, who just so happened to turn up just around the time poor Hannah gets her throat torn out? No one else was around, Hermione!"  
Hermione shook her head. "Just because he's half vampire doesn't automatically make him a killer." There was no one else it could be unless Harry has suddenly developed a taste for Jugulars!" Ron began to shout, his temper was rising.

Harry gasped "Ron, wait-"

"No Harry! She clearly can't see that Cedric mur-"

Harry shushed Ron again. Images flashed across his mind of Pansy in the hallway, leaning out to talk to someone, her look of fervent worry as she thought she'd been overheard , and then the evil smile as she walked away. Pansy knew who had killed Hannah!

Harry knocked over the books stacked next to him in his haste to get to his feet.

He looked at his two friends. They were looking at him, confused.

"Pansy was there a few minutes before and she was talking to someone below the window. I think she knows who did it"

Hermione sighed, "There's no way she'll admit to knowing anything Harry. Let's just go back to looking through the books, I'm sure-"

"How do you make truth potion?" Ron asked Harry, talking over Hermione and silencing her completely.

"We'd have to force feed it her, there must be another way that we could see the memory for ourselves..."

A light switched on in Harry's head. He bent down to grab his bag and hurriedly re-stacked the books that he'd knocked over.

"There's another way we can see for ourselves what Pansy remembers."  
Ron's face lit up with a mischievous smile.

"We need to steal Dumbledore's pensieve"

oOo

"Sherbet lemon!"

"Sugar Quills!"

"Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans!"

Harry, Ron and Hermione had been stood in the hall for almost ten minutes, trying to stumble onto the password that would move the huge, hulking gargoyle away from the base of the stairs to the Headmaster's quarters.

"This is stupid! We're never going to outguess the headmaster" Hermione whined.

Harry had been racking his brain for things that the headmaster could have used as a password. He had a fondness for using sweets as the password and Harry was trying to think of as many vague sweets as possible.

"Fizzing Whizbees?" Harry asked.

There was a click, and the gargoyle sprang to life.

Ron and Hermione cheered as the statue stepped sideways to let them pass.  
The stairs stretched up in front of them.

"Harry" Hermione warned, "What if he's up there?"

Harry shrugged.

"I'll think of something to say if he is."

The revolving stairs carried Harry, Ron and Hermione up the stairs. At the top, Harry quietly motioned for the other two to follow him.

Harry pressed his ear gently against the door of the headmaster's office.

It was silent inside.

Harry gave the other two a thumbs up and pushed against the door.

It swung open, revealing the circular room in which Harry had found himself several times before.

All the portraits were sound asleep, and the chair in which Dumbledore would usually sit was vacant.

"Hurry!" Harry whispered as he tiptoed into the room and hurriedly looked around.

Ron moved over to a cabinet and pulled it open, "In here Harry!"

Harry moved over to Ron and looked through the misty glass.

There it was. Harry recognised the pale grey of the rock the Pensieve was made out of. The runes etched into it looked just as mysterious as the first time he'd seen it.

Something moved in the corner of Harry's eye and he jumped.  
It took all his willpower not to yell out in shock, but he relaxed once he saw that it was only Fawkes. The magnificent bird was sat on its golden perch. One of the phoenix's beetle black eyes was fixed firmly on Harry, while the other was still closed as if still asleep. Harry placed a finger to his mouth and gave the bird a small wink. _Be quiet! _Harry thought.

The bird ruffled its feather and tilted its head to one side.

Harry looked away and began to help Ron lift the heavy bowl from it's shelf, and as they did so the hem of Ron's sleeve knocked over a little glass vial of purple liquid, which fell from it's shelf to the floor and smashed with the noise of a gunshot.

All at once, the portraits began to stir.

The three of them shared a horrified look.

Certainly, they would be suspended if not expelled for attempting to steal from the Headmaster!

Harry and Ron began to pull harder on the Pensieve, trying hard to extricate it from the cabinet faster.

"It's stuck on something!" Ron hissed.

Harry wrenched with all his might and the pensieve came free from the cupboard.

Ron made a small groaning sound as he bared the weight of the stone bowl, and Harry did his best to take some of the weight.

Phineus Nigellus Black yawned and stretched while Dexter Fortescue mumbled about needing five more minutes. Fawkes screeched petulantly as they freed the Pensieve from the cupboard and Nigellus let out a small gasp of shock.

"Let's get out of here!" Harry yelled, panic taking hold of him as the portraits began to shout "thieves!".

The three of them bolted from the room.

Hermione slammed the door shut and they ran down the stairs, past the gargoyle and down the corridor, panic far outweighing the weight of the heavy bowl.

When they finally stopped running, and placed the pensieve down on the floor, Harry withdrew the Marauder's Map once again from his pocket and folded it down on the floor.

"Lumos" Ron said quietly. The tip of his wand flared into life and the little labelled footsteps of every person in Hogwarts came into view.

"We're alone" Harry gasped, finally allowing himself to relax and catch his breath.

With some difficulty, the three of them eventually pinpointed Pansy's footsteps deep in the dungeons.

"She's not alone, Harry' Ron whined.

Next to the little footsteps of Pansy were the much more intimidating footsteps of Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle.

"It doesn't matter" Hermione snapped," She's never going to just give us her memories and we have no potion to make her do what we want."

Harry looked up from the map.

"No, but we _do _have a spell"

Ron's mouth dropped open.

Hermione shook her head in incredulous disbelief.

"Harry, you _cannot_ be serious."


End file.
